Whatawoman: Grace Dobson

Widow who built a burger empire is dead at age 80

Most people thought Grace Dobson would sell her rapidly growing
hamburger business after her husband died in a private plane crash in
1967.

Instead, during the next 38 years, the Whataburger matriarch, who
died of complications from cancer Thursday in a local hospital at age
80, played an integral part in growing the hamburger chain into the
eighth largest in the nation. She also gave copious amounts of her time
and money back to Corpus Christi and the state.

Dobson, an Arkansas native, married Harmon Dobson in 1955, five
years after he opened the first Whataburger near Del Mar College. As a
team, they expanded the Whataburger chain and had a family.

After her husband died, Grace Dobson surrounded herself with a
management team, became chairwoman of the board and grew the business
to more than 600 company-owned and franchised stores - and raised three
children as a single parent.

Through the years, she also served in numerous philanthropic
capacities including working for the USO, Coastal Bend Youth City, the
Kidney Foundation and the Texas State Aquarium.

Along the way she made lifelong friends, including Bill Sheka Sr.,
83, who knew her for 50 years.

Dobson lived in the same modest house at Santa Fe Street and Meldo
Park Drive for years, maintaining a close relationship with her
children, grandchildren and friends, Sheka said.

She did not like to drive, so for years he picked her up and drove
her to monthly USO meetings. Along the way they talked about old times
and old friends. They are memories Sheka said he will treasure.

"It was a friendship that grew and grew," Sheka said. "I considered
myself lucky to be a friend of Grace. You can count real friends on one
hand. Corpus Christi is going to miss Grace Dobson. I'm going to miss
her, too."

Fifty years after standing in line at the first Whataburger where he
made friends with Grace Dobson, local businessmen Robert Adler was on
hand earlier this year when his friend "Lady Grace" threw out the first
pitch at the opening of Whataburger Field.

For Adler, the name on the stadium and the ball-throwing honor were
small tributes to a woman he thought the world of.

"She was a very shy woman, who didn't want the limelight," Adler
said Friday. "But through all of their giving and the charitable things
that they did for the community and the state of Texas it glowed down
on her anyway. She threw out the ball at the field right before she got
really sick. She was very excited about that."

She is survived by two sons, Thomas and Hugh Dobson; a daughter,
Lynne Dobson; three sisters, Lola Stettler, Louise Abbot and Jean
Florie; and five grandchildren.

Funeral services are at 10:30 a.m. Tuesday at St. Luke's United
Methodist Church, 3151 Reid Drive. Private burial will be in Seaside
Memorial Park.